10 Tools Every Small Business Marketer Should Have on Hand
If you’re like me, trying to squeeze 30 hours of work in a 24 hour day, efficiency is a big deal. Well today we have Hannah Watson sharing her top 10 tools every (busy) small business marketer needs, to help us get more done in less time.
Getting more done in a day doesn’t mean having to spend a fortune on software or working at all hours of the day. These tools can help you be more productive and launch more effective marketing. The vast majority of them are also free or very reasonably priced so you’ll be able to stick to your budget as well.
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Firefox: While Google’s browser Chrome might be quicker on its feet than Firefox, Firefox still maintains a distinct advantage in that users can add loads of customization with add-ons. These can help you organize information, track your websites and even keep up on your RSS feeds.
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Google Reader: Subscribing to blogs can be a great way to keep up with the latest things going on in small business or just to entertain yourself. The easiest way to keep up with them all is through an RSS reader like Google’s offering that will put them all in one place.
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Google Alerts: You don’t need to wait for your ears to burn to know if someone is talking about you with this tool. Create a search for your business name (or your competitor’s) and you’ll get daily emails about when it’s mentioned online.
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TweetDeck: If you’ve decided to use Twitter as part of your marketing scheme then make the most of it with this tool that lets you more easily control who you follow and what you see.
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WordPress: These days many businesses are taking to the blogging world and this free blogging platform offers an easy an customizable way to represent your business on the web.
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Google Analytics: If you want to know about the success of your website and your business online this is pretty much an essential tool as it lets you track traffic, conversions, searches and more.
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Backpack: Those who are chronically disorganized can get a little help from this tool that lets users create to-do lists, take notes, store files and keep a calendar with email updates.
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Breeze: Make sending out email campaigns child’s play with this online service. It helps you create, send and track the effectiveness of email marketing.
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Highrise: If you’re in need of a CRM tool, try this version that will let you keep in touch with clients and organize your customer information.
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Zoho: This fully featured office suite has tools for everything from creating presentations to managing customer data, and just about everything else in between.
Have any other tools small business marketers shouldn’t be without – let us know in the comments section below.
Author Bio:
Hannah graduated from UH in Houston as an English major. She worked for a Marketing firm for a year before trying to pursue freelancing and currently writes for online education sites and about a variety of different topics like education, business, and marketing.
Photo Credit: xjara69
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Three Magic Words That Sell
Not often will magicians share their tricks with the world, but today we have marketing wizard Boyd Blackwood pulling back the curtain to reveal one of his advertising secrets – three words that sell!
Almost since mankind grunted its first syllable, other men have searched for the most effective words to motivate and convince.
In the twentieth century, the study became a mini-science as experts began to codify the words they had found to increase the effectiveness of advertising and sales messages. Legendary ad-guru David Ogilvy was one such writer, offering his Most Effective Trilogy: You, New and How.
As a marketing strategist and copywriter for over 30 years, I have honed my own list of Magic Words – ones that I know from experience really work in advertising, on websites and in one-to-one selling. Here are three of my favorites.
#1: Because
The MOST powerful word you can use to convince is not You, not New, not even Free. It is Because.
Why?
Because the word has almost irresistible power to create belief in the minds of others. Its magic power comes from the fact that none of us really make decisions logically. In almost every instance, people make decisions emotionally – and then justify them logically.
When you use the word Because, you give the other person justification for believing you. What is truly amazing is that the reason that follows the word Because, doesn’t even have to be totally logical, provable or otherwise sound.
On a more prosaic level, which one of these requests is more persuasive?
“Will you buy these cookies?”
“Will you buy these cookies because the sales go to buy our classroom a computer?”
#2: You
Here I line up with Ogilvy; You is one of the most powerful words around.
Nobody wants to receive more sales messages – we’re all overwhelmed with them. So, we always view any message first with the question: “Is this of any importance to me?”
If the message seems to be addressed to a vast, undefined group of someones, the answer is usually “no”. So, every message should be addressed to the most specific person there is: you.
If you need convincing, stand on a busy street corner and yell: “Can anyone help me?” Then try looking directly at one person and asking: “Can YOU help me?”
#3: Imagine
Hypnotic suggestion is fascinating. One of the simplest ways to induce hypnosis is to ask someone to imagine something. When we engage our imagination, we slip into a light trance state – putting our rationale mind on hold for a moment and allowing our more creative subconscious to take charge.
And our subconscious is the province of wishes, memories, desires and dreams. Suggesting that someone imagine himself or herself enjoying the benefits of whatever you are promoting can work wonders – it causes them to actually enter the state of being a buyer, to pre-experience the sensations and emotions of ownership or acceptance.
You move from trying to persuade someone to helping them actually persuade themselves. That’s strong magic!
Note: Asking people to remember something is another way to help them access their subconscious. “Remember what it felt like on Christmas morning when you saw your first shiny (whatever) there under the tree?” Then, just connect that remembered feeling to whatever you’re selling.
Now… imagine what you can accomplish by using these magic words to promote your business. Because they almost have the power of incantation.
Author Bio:
For over 30 years, Boyd Blackwood has created ideas with practical applications in the fields of advertising, marketing, public relations and sales.
Among his favorite accomplishments are creating corporate names for national companies such as StaffMark and naming the national program AmeriCorps. He also created the official souvenir books for two U.S. presidential inaugurations. Creative work by himself and his teams has won several National ADDY Awards and has been featured in the Clios, Adweek Magazine, Luerzer’s Archive and AdAge Magazine.
Today, he shares the secrets he’s learned about getting the most return from any size marketing expenditure at his blog, Smart Marketing On Any Budget
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10 Things Mom Never Told You About Social Media for Business
During your formative years you no doubt had important talks with your mother, where she instilled in you the values you carry with you today.
You know, important stuff like the birds and the bees, and how to use social media for your business.
Well she was probably right on when it comes to the birds and the bees, but she left a few things out when she went over social media with you.
Let’s clear that up.
10 Things Mom Never Told You About Social Media for Business.
Don’t Be Upset
There you have it. Unfortunately mom held back some info – but don’t be upset with her, I’m sure she wanted to tell you but just couldn’t find the right words, or felt awkward about the conversation. Maybe she didn’t think you were ready for it, and was just trying to protect “her baby”. Try to understand.
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Netbiz Case Study: The Importance of Online Reputation Management
It’s not often you find a business willing to admit to mistakes and candidly share what they learned from them – but that’s exactly what we have here today.
Cory Huff, of Netbiz, shares what Netbiz learned when it comes to online reputation management and listening to the online conversation.
Netbiz is also giving away $1000 to one lucky reader – see details at the end of the article.
The Internet provides an open forum for consumer opinions. The power of social network sharing combined with search engines makes it impossible to hide a company’s mistakes or customer dissatisfaction.
Listening is Crucial
This is what we experienced at Netbiz. While we are proud to say that we’ve been in business since 2002 and have over 12,000 small business clients, we came to realize that there was a storm brewing online and it caught us blindsided. We weren’t listening and it came back to bite us.
Netbiz was being talked about on blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks and we didn’t pay enough attention to know the full extent of the conversation. Even though a great deal of what was being said was distorted or wrong, there was also truth to what was being said.
Changes for the Better
We have made some major changes recently at Netbiz and as part of that we created a plan to become more open and engaged with the small business community. Incidentally, the plan we created is taken, in part, from the story of what happened to Dell Computers. They had a similar customer service problem and have undertaken a major effort to clean up their reputation online (see Ideastorm.com). Here’s what we’re doing in order to become engaged with our clients online.
Listening. We are using existing free tools as well as some paid ones to monitor the discussion of our company’s brand online.
- You can use Google Alerts and TweetBeep (Tweetbeep.com to find mentions of your brand for free.
- Trackur by Andy Beal is a good way to filter results if you find too much information related to your brand.
- We have created accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites to hear what’s being said.
Engaging. Every company has dissatisfied customers. When complaints happens on the Internet we can approach the customer and see if there’s anything we can do to make it right.
- In addition, we are partnering with high profile bloggers, like SmallBizBee.com, to see what our customers, present and future, are really looking for in a Search Engine Marketing Company focused on small business.
Building a Community. This is something that remains to be seen. We love our company and think that our people do a good job helping our clients. The true test of this, is creating an environment that will engage our satisfied and unsatisfied clients, as well as our potential clients who are wondering who we really are.
Building a blog. We’ve launched the Netbiz Blog and there we will provide tons of useful information to our clients on how to set up effective internet marketing campaigns. It will also be a forum for discussion of both our performance and our clients’ needs.
- Giving back. We’re getting ready to launch a new contest where small businesses can earn a huge package of free Search Engine Marketing services. Our hope is that by giving back to the small business community, they will see that we are sincere in our desire to help and be willing to use that as a starting point for an ongoing discussion about the market.
- We have been doing charitable work from the very beginning but have always been hesitant to talk about it publicly. We’ll be sharing openly some of the work that we are doing for groups like Open Arms International and other organizations.
Having fun. We certainly recognize that the day of the corporate wall of silence is past. We are slowly changing as an organization. We’re becoming more relaxed in our interactions with our clients. We’re trying a little more to let people in and see who we are. We’re not trying so much to force a message as to open up our organization and let people see who we are. We hope that they like what they see.
I’m really curious to read about all of your experiences in the SmallBizBee Community. Have any of you had to deal with this kind of situation? Let us know in the comments below.
Win $1000 From Netbiz!
From now until September 21st, you have an opportunity to win 2 months worth of free search engine placement on Google (valued at $1000)!
Here’s how you can enter to win:
* Follow @Ask_Netbiz on Twitter and ask us a question about small business internet marketing. We’ll answer your question and enter you in our drawing.
* Every time you Re-Tweet our contest, we’ll give you another entry in our drawing.
* Become a fan of Ask Netbiz on Facebook and ask us a small business internet marketing question there. We’ll answer your question and enter you in our drawing.
It’s that simple. Ask a question, get an answer, and as a bonus, we will give one lucky business owner two month’s worth of Search Engine Placement at no cost to you!
About the Author
Cory Huff is the Social Media Specialist at NetBiz.com, a search engine marketing firm based in Portland, Oregon. He has worked in Social Media since 2003. Cory is always looking for partners to collaborate with. If you are interested, you can email him at chuff [at] Netbiz.com.
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